When to Stop Using Pullup at Night

Nighttime dryness has nothing to do with potty training. It's a physiological thing--their bladder needs to develop. Some kids don't have dry nights consistently until they are 4-5-6-7 or even 8.
A good rule of thumb: When he has a dry pull up every morning for a week you can get ready to ditch the pull ups.
People are going to tell you to limit his fluids, take him to the bathroom in the middle of the night, etc. I wouldn't waste my time. His bladder will be ready when it's ready! Hang in there!

Night time dryness happens between the ages of 5 and 7. Some kids stay dry at night sooner but most do not.

My daughter was 8 (mind you - we have bed wetting in the family) she's been pull up free at night for a year and has never had an accident.

My son is 6 and still wakes with a full diaper. Drink or no drink before bedtime doesn't make a difference for him. Both of my kids are very deep sleepers. Crossing my fingers we'll be out of pull ups within a year - they are expensive! LOL!

When he's dry every morning for 2 weeks in a row, then it's time to say Bye to the pull ups.
For my son, he was day trained at 3 1/2, but he was 7 before he was dry through the night.
Some kids are not ready till they are 11 or 12.

Night and day potty training are two totally separate things. Many kids are day trained years before they are reliably dry overnight. There isn't a whole lot you can do to hurry it along, their little bodies just aren't mature enough to stay dry overnight at age 4 in a lot of cases. Be patient, it will come.

I would leave it on until he is waking up dry. I have a 5 year old son that wet the bed every night and did fine during the day. I thought it was never going to end. 3 days before his 5th birthday 4/4/11 DOB. He stopped and hasn't wet the bed since! YAY!

Good luck to you I know how frustrating this is.

I have to say I am on the opp side of this... I have a lot of personal issues with potty training because my mother avoided it and I ended up having to have surgery to correct my bladder problems cause by holding it and not learning. So not every child needs to "just get it". I wet the bed until I was 8. We did not have pullups and my mother didn't make a conscious effort to train me. I ended up with bladder issues and emotional issues since I couldn't comfortably spend a night away from home.

I night and day potty trained my daughter at the same time when she was 2.5 (now 4). Once the diapers were out of the house, they were out. No turning back. I triple layered her bed with fitted sheets and liners so, when she did have an accident, it didn't cause too much disturbance for her. Then we did the wake her up at midnight and 4 am for 3 weeks... wake only at midnight for 3 weeks... and then totally drop the wake up. Within a month and a half, my daughter was fully trained and has never had a night accident since. This trained her subconscious and her bladder.

GL!

One night I ran out of pullups and diapers for my oldest so I didnt put anything on him and he hasn't had a night accident since. It was just before he turned 3. This was a kid that would wake up with a soaking wet diaper every morning. He started getting up the 1st night. I say just try to go without and see what happens. My middle son I had to slow down on the liquids before he was out just before 3. My youngest was out of night diapers for a few months but for some reason he needed them again when I got him a bigger bed.
I guess whenever works for your son.

I highly suggest leaving him in pull ups until he is absolutely ready and stops wetting the pull up for many weeks.

I have a 6 year old who still wets at night and has been fully potty trained since age 2. I have talked with two pediatricians about this topic extensively, as well as doing my own research and discussing it with other moms. The consensus is - they will not wet the bed forever (we hope!), taking the pull up away before they are ready could set them back even more, and wet sheets serve no purpose.

You cannot make them ready before their body is ready. Leave the pull ups on and get some rest without middle of the night sheet changing! It will come, I promise.

My son NEVER consistently woke up dry with pullups. He was daytime trained at 25 months. He was still in a crib and we didn't want to have to get up in the middle of the night to take him to the bathroom so we put off night time training until he was about 2-1/2 (if I were to do it again, I would do the whole thing at once). We just switched from pull ups to underwear at night and made sure he went to the bathroom before bedtime. He had occasional (1-2 accidents a week) accidents for several weeks and then another 2 or 3 over the following year. We tried the night time waking thing once but was never able to get him to stay even semi conscious long enough to sit on the toilet without falling off.

I don't think you really can assess their bladder capacity or ability to wake up when they need to go by whether they are dry in the morning. I suspect many kids wake up, need to go and just go in the pull up and go back to sleep. At 5-1/2 he will occasionally get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night but most nights does not need to. He has slept from 3pm (after a birthday party) all the way through until 10 am the next day without peeing.

You can't switch him out of the pullups it would be too confusing for him. He isn't wearing them during the day is he? If not, then just tell him since he knows when to go during the day, he should be able to go at night and tell him you are going to start working on it. No liquids for at least an hour or more before bed and ideally, if you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, wake him up and make him go too. He will either start to get the hang of it or will hate that you are waking him up and if so then you tell him its his job to get up on his own and go or learn to hold it til morning. I don't believe that the "bladder needs to develop" or their wouldn't be so many kids potty trained at an early age like mine were. So just encourage him, give him a small reward for every morning he wakes up dry and it will encourage him to do it on his own. Good luck.

My son is 5 and has only stopped the pull ups in the last few months. Our situation was like yours...I tried putting him in underwear and he would just wet...and end up with a rash around his privates. Finally one night he dug in and decided that he was a big boy and did not need pull ups any more. He has only had abour 2 accidents since then. I still wake him up to pee before I go to bed though...

After testing on our child to show that nothing was wrong our doctor said to stop with the pull-ups when he was 4. We did this with accidents almost every night for a long while. He finally got the hang of it until he had another growth spurt. HOWEVER, we woke him up to go potty when we did at night and still do this. We have a wet bed every now and then, but not very often. Our doc discouraged the pull-ups saying that if they learn to rely of them it will take them longer to learn to not wet the bed. If there is an accident in the middle of the night neither my husband or I get upset we simply take the child potty, change the sheets and kiss them good night again.

My daughter is almost 5 years old I have just started to notice dryiness in the morning, but it is not every morning yet. It seems that around age 6 my daughter, fingers crossed with be sans pull ups at night, but if not I will do what makes my daughter sleep well. She is really smart about knowing when she is ready to do something. She was not potty trained till 4 years old, and she did it herself in a week, I had tried numrous times earlier but she knew she was not ready so I did not push her.

Things you can do is right before bed have him go to the bathroom. Most of the time my daughter is dry if I remember to have her use the bathroom before she goes to bed. There is 2-3 nights still that she wakes up with a wet pull up. We do let her know if she wakes up in the middle of the night having the urge to go to the bathroom that it is ok to get up and go (she has not done that yet).

I was told that potty trained means "staying dry for 30 days and nights". He may still be a little young to realize he needs to wake up to do his buisness so he sleeps through it. You could try putting big boy underwear on him with a pull up over so at least he gets the sensation of being wet better than the pull up alone. This may wake him up enough to realize he needs to go.

For my three kids, nighttime dryness was not a matter of just wishing it to be so - they weren't physically ready until ages 5, 8, and 10! For my girls, their systems just matured at the ages of 5 and 8. I did realize that the 8 year old needed to be in charge of her own bed, and she was ready to do so. By this time she was dry many nights and was able to make the leap to being dry all the time.

For my son, he was such a deep sleeper, and was wet every night until he was 10. At that time he was really motivated to be dry, so I got him a pee alarm. The results were amazing! Within 4 days he was dry every night and never needed a pull-up again.

Base on my kids, I'd say 4 is kind of young. He might not be physically ready to be dry at night. They all get there eventually. But you know your son best. If you think he'd be successful with being dry if you took off the pull-up, by all means try it. But if he still wets the bed, realize that he's just not ready yet, and be prepared to be patient for awhile!

If you want to try the pee alarm, you can find them at bedwettingstore.com. We used a Malem (which I actually got on eBay).

Good luck!

my answer is usually "when they wake up dry", but you might need to invest in some plastic bottom sheets and let him wear big boy underwear. maybe soiling himself for a few nights will train him, because its uncomfortable and not as easy as a diaper.

I used them until my son was 5 and eventually he would go long bouts with no wet pull ups so I stopped. We had many accidents after that but they eventually tapered off to 1 time a week and then once a month. I just purchased a few waterproof mattress covers and he didn't like sleeping in the wet bed so eventually it stopped.

If you really want to add several loads of laundry to your busy day then by all means stop using pull ups at night. He will stop wetting and begin holding it when he is ready and not before. Make it easy on your self and just encourage him to go before bed and reward him for being dry if it ever happens. He will start having dry mornings at some point before college...lol. He will feel good about himself when he wakes up dry because he really wants to.

My son is 3 1/2 and has been potty trained for 8 months now and he still wakes up with a wet pull up :( Sometimes soaked! I limit no drinks to 1 - 2 hours before bed but he only wakes up dry once in a while. I have heard that if you routinely put him in underwear and have him wet the bed a few nights he will learn to wake himself up to pee. We tried it but only for two nights and it didn't work :( I am not sure what to do either! I feel that you can train their bladder during the day why can't you at night? I'll let you know if I find anything that works!

I recently got my daughter to stop wearing pullups at 4 at night. I woke her throughout the night at first about three times a night then two then one and now none. She's dry all night and maybe gets up once by herself to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

My almost 6 y/o still wears a pull up for naps and overnights. With the naps, it's a just in case - she's 80% dry with naps. Overnights, 5 out of 7 nights she's wet. Has nothing to do with drinking before bed, or not going to the bathroom before bed - she is just a dead to the world sleeper - I was too. I hope she will grow out of that sleep pattern sooner than it took me.

Forcing a child to wake up in wet underwear is kinda cruel and only causes Mom more work. It is not an intentional situation where a child cannot wake up to pee - their body hasn't matured enough to realize the nerve impulse of being full needs to wake them up. I see this in the elderly a lot too... when they are awake, they stay dry - when they sleep - their body has LOST the ability for the nerve impulse to wake them to use the bathroom.

My kids always took advantage and used the pull up when it was on them. however, when I took it away they learned to wait to go potty. I started out by waking them when we went to bed to go potty (around 10:00-11:00), then stopped this and now they both sleep through the night with virtually no accidents. My kids are ages 3 and 4 1/2. My daughter never has an accident and my son has had maybe 2 accidents.

I would be careful how you approach this. I was a bed-wetter until almost age 8, and it was embarrassing that my dad treated me like there was something wrong with me. My mom was a little more understanding and seemed the accept that it really wasn't my fault.

That being said, my 4.5yo wakes up dry most mornings (and has been potty trained for over a year) but prefers to wear the Pull-up. However, I've downgraded from the overnight version to just the regular version, hoping to encourage more awareness. He never gets up in the middle of the night, but he's also my champion holder!!! It's amazing how long he can hold it!!!

Unfortunately, he sleeps with Daddy, and I can't afford the waterproof cover right now, and the only 2 accidents he's ever had have been in that bed (of course haha). I've already told him, though, that when this bag runs out, I'm not buying anymore. It worked with diapers, so I'm hoping it'll have the same affect with the Pull-up, though I'm also mentally preparing myself for the hopefully only-occasional accident. (I'm hoping he didn't inherit the bed-wetting)

One of the rituals is to have him use the toilet before he goes to bed everynight, and depending on what time that is you should stop his liquid intake a few hours before putting him to bed, that always helps.

All of my children with the exception of my youngest were day/night potty trained by the time they were 3 1/2. My youngest daughter trained herself. She quite literally woke up dry one morning and never had wet diaper (we kept her in one overnight for 7 nights to be sure) or wet panties again. Needless to say I was amazed!
My youngest son however made me want to pull my hair out. He didn't get day-trained until he was about 4 (He just didn't care if he was wet or dirty and he just didn't like to stop playing to go use the restroom)
When he was almost 5 though I put my foot down. I made sure his bed had a waterproof mattress cover on it and told him that if he wet the bed that he wasn't allowed to wake me up to change the sheets. He would either have to put a clean sheet on himself (i set out a twin size flat sheet rather than a fitted so all he to do was spread it on the bed) and then in the morning he would help me wash the bedding. He wet the bed three more nights and I'm guessing he decided he didn't like to deal with all the stuff wetting the bed entailed because after that he NEVER wet the bed again. Sometimes suffering through being a tad uncomfortable is what it takes for that turning point to happen.

Whatever you do Good Luck!